One of the important premises of the show is the quality of the singing talent. Four coaches, themselves popular performing artists, train the talents in their group and occasionally perform with them. Talents are selected in blind auditions, where the coaches cannot see, but only hear the auditioner.

The first televised stage is the blind auditions, where auditionees sing in front of the official coaches. All coaches will be sitting on a chair that is turned back from the stage. The coaches will first judge and only judge by the power, clarity, type and uniqueness of the artists singing prowess. If they like what they hear and want to mentor the artist for the next stage, they will push a button by their chair that would turn the chair around to face the stage for the first time and also see the artists for the first time after they sing to avoid any due bias according to characteristics and personality. If more than one coach turns around, the power to pick goes to the artist who will be given the chance to pick his/her coach of choice. If no coach turns his/her chair the auditioning artist's journey ends. At the end, each of the coach will have a certain number of artists in his or her team who will be advancing to the next round.

The second stage, 'the Battle rounds', is where two artists are mentored and then developed by their respective coach. The coaches of the team will "dedicate themselves to developing their artists, giving them advice, and sharing the secrets of their success in the music industry". Every member of their team battle against another member from their team. They sing the same song simultaneously, while their coach decides who should continue in the competition. The coaches have to choose from the four individual “battles” to take artists to the live round.

The final stage, dubbed as the 'Live shows', is where the surviving combatants perform in front of the coaches, audience and broadcast live. Each coach will be having four artists in their team to begin with and the artists will go head-to-head in the competition to win the public votes. These will determine which artist advances to the final eight. The remaining three artists' future in the show will be determined by the coaches, choosing who will progress.

The final eight artists will compete in a live broadcast. However, the coaches will have a 50/50 say with the audience and the public in deciding which artists move on to the 'final four' phase. In the latter, each coach will have one member who will continue. The final (the winner round) will be decided upon by the public vote. Throughout the final the coaches will frequently perform with their artists. The winner will be crowned The Voice of Holland.

In season one, coaches were Roel van Velzen, Jeroen van der Boom, Angela Groothuizen and Nick & Simon (working together). Host was Martijn Krabbé. The first season ended on January 21, 2011, Ben Saunders was declared the winner, with Pearl Jozefzoon as runner-up. Saunders won by 59% of the votes. An average of 2.7 million people watched the show every Friday since its launch, while the final attracted 3,744,000 viewers. The results show broadcast half an hour later attracted 3,238,000.[1] In total 30 of the show's singles reached the Top 100 download charts in the Netherlands, including 2 #1 chart toppers by winner Ben Saunders.[1]

Martijn Krabbé, who hosted season one, remained as the host but was now joint by Wendy van Dijk, with whom he was already sharing the hosting duties on Idols. Jeroen van der Boom left the show to become the head of the jury in The Winner Is, being replaced by popular Dutch pop-artist Marco Borsato, who would eventually win the show with 19-year-old Iris Kroes on 20 January 2011 over Chris Hordijk for Team Nick & Simon, who again became the runner-ups of the show. Kroes won over Hordijk with only 51% of the votes, making her the second female contestant worldwide to win the show after Steliyana Khristova, who won the Bulgarian version of the show.

The fourth season started in August 2013. Martijn Krabbé and Wendy van Dijk returned as co-hosts, while Winston Gerstanovich returned as host of the 'Red Room'. Marco Borsato and Trijntje Oosterhuis were the only coaches from season 3 to return. On December 17, 2012, it was announced that Nick & Simon won't return as coaches in the fourth season.[2] On March 22, 2013, it was announced that Ilse DeLange will become a coach in the fourth season.[3] In January, Roel van Velzen announced he would not return as a coach for a fourth season and was replaced by Ali B. Julia van der Toorn and Gerrie Dantuma of Team Borsato finished as winner and in third place respectively, making season 4 the first season to have two contestants of the same team in the final and the first where a coach did not win in their first season. Mitchell Brunnings of Team DeLange finished in second place and Jill Helena of Team Ali B finished in fourth place.

In 2012, the Dutch-language network RTL Netherlands introduced a children's version of The Voice, The Voice Kids. Fabiënne Bergmans won the first season of this show. The second season debuted on December 21, 2012. And the finale airing on February 15, 2013. Laura van Kaam won the second season. The judges including these two seasons are Angela Groothuizen, the Dutch duo Nick & Simon and Marco Borsato.

Various international television networks have licensed or indicated interest in the format.

NBC — On December 2010, NBC announced that they have purchased the franchise rights to air an American version of the show. The show was initially named as The Voice of America but was later shortened to The Voice.[4][5] The show premiered on April 26, 2011.

vtm and RTBF's La Une — The Flemish part of Belgium started airing their own version of the show on November 25, 2011. It is broadcast on vtm, the main commercial television station in Flanders, Belgium and entitled The Voice van Vlaanderen.[7] On the other hand, the French-speaking part of Belgium started airing their own version of the show, The Voice Belgique, on December 20, 2011. It is broadcast on RTBF's La Une, a public television station in the French-speaking part of Belgium.[8]

Televisa — On September 8, 2011, the Mexican version of the show, La Voz... México, aired on Televisa's "Canal de las Estrellas". It features Lucero, Aleks Syntek, Espinoza Paz and Alejandro Sanz as judges.

Nine Network — On 29 May 2011, it was announced that Australia's Nine Network would broadcast the Australian version of the show, The Voice, in late 2011. However, two months later, they reported that the show will be postponed to air until the early 2012, and that Nine Network are in talks with signing at least one international artist to lead its panel of coaches on the show. The first series premiered on the April 15, 2012 featuring Delta Goodrem, Joel Madden, Seal and Keith Urban as the coaches.[10]

The show is currently one of the highest rated shows on Dutch television, with weekly ratings varying between 1.6 to 3.0 million viewers.[19] Its first season finale, which aired on the 21st of January 2011, was viewed by 3.75 million. The second season's first episode was viewed by almost 3.3 million.